ABSTRACT
Most Colonial Governments experienced administrative changes broadly similar to those that affected the Colonial Office during the war. Yet this did not stem extensive criticism from some quarters. The more Lord Swinton, Cabinet Minister resident in West Africa from 1942 to 1944, saw of the Colonial Service, the more was he ‘impressed with the number of misfits, or at any rate of men who just carry on because they are permanently in the groove’.1 Lord Harlech, another former Colonial Secretary, believed that the promotions system in the Service discouraged the more worthy and pushed forward those men ‘who can be trusted never to break an egg and so never make omelettes’.2 The war had in fact imposed an excessive strain on the Colonial Service. In Africa twenty-five per cent of the administrative officers had been released for service with the armed forces, and those who remained were dissatisfied with salary scales, housing conditions, lack of leave, and overwork.3 Swinton told the Cabinet that the administrative machine in West Africa might break at some important point.4 Despite the weaknesses within the Colonial Governments, and regardless of the more active role the Colonial Office was beginning to take, the impetus for change still lay with individual Governors. Of great importance during the war were the activities and proposals that emanated from the empire itself. Part of the significance of officials and politicians in London lay in the acceptance or rejection of policies which they themselves did not initiate. By the interaction of metropolis and periphery, the Second World War saw the emergence of a much more clearly defined body of colonial doctrine, but only after the African Governors had largely destroyed Hailey’s theoretical African strategy.
